Category: Financial Crime
Former Virginia Nexus Services Owner Pleads Guilty to Employment Tax Fraud
A Virginia man and former business owner pleaded guilty yesterday to not accounting for and paying employment taxes to the IRS. According to court documents and statements made in court, Richard E. Moore, of Augusta County, was the executive vice president and part owner of Nexus Services Inc., a Verona-based company that offered bond securitization and other services to immigrants…
Vanguard strikes deal with FDIC over huge holdings in US banks, agrees to new oversight of its investments in some US lenders
Vanguard has bowed to regulatory pressure and agreed to new oversight of its investments in some US lenders, a decision that could have sweeping implications for money managers and banks. The deal, which the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corp disclosed on Friday, will allow Vanguard’s funds to continue to be huge shareholders in a wide swath of the country’s banks…
UnitedHealth CEO Shooting: Media and police release manhunt pictures of different person
The video, seen below, shows a shooter assassinating UnitedHealthcare CEO, Brian Thompson, outside a Manhattan hotel. The manhunt for the shooter is still underway 3 days later. News outlets have been irresponsibly posting images of a suspect wearing similar clothing, but who can be seen to be wearing a different jacket and carrying a dark backpack. The shooter’s backpack is…
Former Allianz fund manager spared prison time over $7 billion fraud
NEW YORK – A former Allianz fund manager was spared prison time on Friday over his role in a meltdown of private investment funds sparked by the COVID-19 pandemic that caused an estimated $7 billion of investor losses. Gregoire Tournant, 57, of Basalt, Colorado, pleaded guilty in June to two counts of investment adviser fraud. He agreed to give up…
S’pore-based Malaysian military contractor ‘Fat Leonard’ who bribed US Navy officers given 15 years’ jail
LOS ANGELES – Leonard Francis, the Malaysian military contractor known as “Fat Leonard”, was sentenced to 15 years in prison on Nov 5 for his role in the US Navy’s worst-ever corruption scandal. Francis, 60, was also ordered to pay US$20 million (S$26.3 million) in restitution to the US Navy by a federal judge in San Diego and to forfeit…
Zelensky signs decree to liquidate medical examination commissions amid corruption scandal
President Volodymyr Zelensky on Oct. 22 issued a decree to liquidate medical examination commissions for determining the severity of disabilities by Dec. 31. The decree was released after a meeting of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC), which on Oct. 22 discussed violations at medical examination commissions and the fraudulent acquisition of disability status by officials through corruption schemes. Obtaining disability status…
Raytheon Company to Pay Over $950M in Connection with Defective Pricing, Foreign Bribery, and Export Control Schemes
Raytheon Company (Raytheon) — a subsidiary of Arlington, Virginia-based defense contractor RTX (formerly known as Raytheon Technologies Corporation) — will pay over $950 million to resolve the Justice Department’s investigations into: (i) a major government fraud scheme involving defective pricing on certain government contracts and (ii) violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and the Arms Export Control Act (AECA) and its…
TD Bank Fined for Crypto Ties with UK and Colombia
According to a report from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) on Oct. 10th, TD Bank’s U.S. wing agreed to pay over $3 billion in penalties. The fine was for failing to properly monitor money laundering activities. The bank has also accepted limits on its future growth in the U.S. FinCEN found that TD Bank facilitated over $1 billion in…
Massive U.S. fine against TD Bank highlights relatively modest penalties in Canada
TORONTO — The more than US$3-billion settlement TD Bank Group has reached with U.S. regulators for its failures to oversee money laundering risks has underlined what some say are relatively weak enforcement options in Canada. Denis Meunier, president of DMeunier Consulting Inc. and a former deputy director of Fintrac, said fines in Canada have to increase significantly to provide adequate…
TD Bank hit with US$3bn fine, pleads guilty to criminal charges
Canada-based financial institution TD Bank has announced its agreement to pay over USD 3 billion, pleading guilty to criminal charges related to money laundering in the US. As detailed by regulators, the fine follows TD Bank’s failure to appropriately monitor money laundering by drug cartels and other criminals, allowing them to transfer hundreds of millions of dollars in unlawful funds….
Bankman-Fried’s ex-girlfriend Caroline Ellison to be sentenced over crypto fraud
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Former cryptocurrency executive Caroline Ellison is set to be sentenced on Tuesday for her role in her imprisoned former boyfriend Sam Bankman-Fried’s theft of about $8 billion in customer funds from the now-bankrupt FTX exchange he founded. Ellison has pleaded guilty to seven felony counts of fraud and conspiracy, and testified as a prosecution witness in…
No criminal charges for US billionaire Carl Icahn, who used company funds to secure personal loans worth billions
US settles with billionaire Carl Icahn for using company to secure personal loans worth billions Billionaire Carl Icahn and his company were charged by U.S. regulators with failing to disclose personal loans worth billions of dollars that were secured using securities of Icahn Enterprises as collateral. Icahn Enterprises and Icahn have agreed to pay $1.5 million and $500,000 in civil…
George Santos due in court, expected to plead guilty in fraud case, AP source says
Former U.S. Rep. George Santos is due in court Monday afternoon, where a person familiar with the matter has said the New York Republican is expected to plead guilty to multiple counts in his federal fraud case. The person could not publicly discuss details of the plea and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. Santos and his…
Crypto firm Terraform and Do Kwon to pay $6 billion to settle SEC fraud case
NEW YORK – Terraform Labs and its co-founder Do Kwon will pay US$4.47 billion (S$6 billion) to resolve a US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawsuit over the company’s 2022 collapse, which wiped out US$40 billion in investor assets and shook the cryptocurrency world. The SEC on June 12 asked a federal judge in New York to approve the settlement….
Lead fund manager Gregoire Tournant in Allianz fraud case pleads guilty
The lead manager in a funds scandal that led to a $6bn settlement between Germany’s Allianz and US authorities has pleaded guilty to investment adviser fraud, two years after two other managers pleaded guilty for their roles in the scheme. The scandal at one of its US asset management units rocked Allianz, one of the world’s biggest insurance groups, casting…
The Latest | Jury finds Trump guilty on all charges in hush money trial
It was the first time a former U.S. president was ever tried or convicted in a criminal case, and was the first of Trump’s four indictments to reach trial. Prosecutors accused Trump of falsifying internal business records to cover up hush money payments tied to an alleged scheme to bury stories that might torpedo his 2016 White House bid. At…